


On the Fridge

by summerartist



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Needles, proud TARDIS, was writing about art and medical science crept in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24625801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerartist/pseuds/summerartist
Summary: Martha finds out something about the TARDIS through the TARDIS’s pride in her occupants’ artwork.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	On the Fridge

Martha rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She dropped her pen and looked at the small diagram. She had drawn the outlines too close to the musculature and she was unable to squeeze in the proper shapes. She had been brushing up on her knowledge of the abdominal cavity for her classes. She should have drawn this graphic illustration in pencil.

“Martha, come and see this!” The Doctor called from the control room.

Martha quickly closed her notebook and stood. She cast the covered diagram one last look before she went to go investigate what had caught the Doctor’s interest.

*******

Martha returned to her room, out of breath and smudged with dirt. She rifled through the drawers near her bed for a fresh set of clothes. After her shower, she was going to make a quick meal if the Doctor wasn’t already playing chef.

As she selected her top, a framed picture caught her attention. It was the drawing she had made this morning. Last time she had checked, she had safely stowed her work away. Who had-? No one else was aboard the TARDIS and she could only conclude that the Doctor had gone through her papers to find the drawing. She picked up the framed picture and clutched it tightly, about to go give the Doctor a piece of her mind. As she made to leave, the TARDIS gave a hum.

“He’s getting it this time. I’ve had enough of people going through my things!” Her sister had been torment enough while they were growing up. Martha was adamantly not going to go through a repeat of it as an adult. The TARDIS gave a whine that sounded almost guilty. Realization dawned.

“Did you do this?” She asked the time machine.

The TARDIS chirped. She made a series of clicks.

“I’m not mad- if that’s what you’re wondering.” Martha was in the depths of the TARDIS’s territory, after all. The TARDIS had always attempted to make her feel more comfortable. She must have a good reason for her interference.

“I didn’t finish this. It’s not labeled or anything,” Martha reminded her.

The TARDIS trilled in agreement and went silent.

“Did you want me to keep it?” Martha couldn’t think of why the TARDIS would want it. The only conclusion she could draw was that the TARDIS was gifting it to her in a frame as a token of affection. When the TARDIS hummed, Martha felt her posture relax.

“Thank you,” she told the TARDIS sincerely.

Martha appreciated the effort to earn her favor if that’s what this was about. She replaced the framed drawing. It wasn’t winning any points for accuracy, but it was compelling to look at least. The TARDIS could have picked a worse sketch.

Martha went back to gathering up her clothes. It would feel good to get the dirt off and have a bite to eat. She tossed off her red jacket in an inelegant heap. She gave the drawing one more look as it sat upon her dresser. It was nice to know that she had the sentient TARDIS’s blessing.

* * *

Martha and the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. They walked out to survey the sunrise over a young and mostly unoccupied world. As the dawn light from the binary suns lit up their profiles, Martha noticed that the Doctor had a smudge of sky blue below his eye.

“You’ve got something on your face,” she pointed out.

The Doctor attempted to rub it off and ended up smearing it across his cheek.

“You’re making it worse.” She clutched his arm to prevent him from spreading the substance. “Where’s your handkerchief that you’re always carrying around?”

The Doctor cast her an amused look as he dug into his pockets. Martha took the handkerchief from him and got his confirmation that it was freshly laundered. She wet it and scrubbed away at the blue mark.

The Doctor whined and fussed. “Martha, you’re a medical student! Why are you putting-” He gave an indignant sputter.

It was a rich argument coming from him, considering how often he was licking foreign objects. Martha finished cleaning his face off and handed over the stained blue linen.

“Oh, it’s gouache!” He rubbed at his face with his hand to take care of any additional residue.

“What’s...whatever you said that was?”

“Gouache is a form of paint,” the Doctor told her. “It’s water based like watercolor and acrylic. It would have come off easily.”

“Why were you covered with paint?” Martha asked.

“Was painting,” the Doctor said, like it was the most natural thing in the universe for a time traveler to do.

Martha’s brow crinkled as she surveyed him. “What were you painting?” It hadn’t been a TARDIS blue on his cheek so he hadn’t been updating the exterior of his ship.

“A gouache landscape of the Xindi Homeworld. It was the original one, before their civil war,” he said casually, stuffing his handkerchief back in his coat and strolling forwards.

“Why?” Martha pressed.

“You ask an awful lot of questions.” He fixed her with a bemused stare. “I felt like painting. Now, what do you say we climb that slope over there, see if we can get a better view of the valley?”

Martha followed him up the steep summit. She let him keep his silence on this topic this time. It wasn’t vital information to know and everyone needed a hobby. She just hoped that she would find out more about it someday.

* * *

Martha gathered up the small medical kit. She wanted to check in on the Doctor before she hit the hay. The Doctor had claimed that he could metabolize the tranquilizer dart, but what he claimed his superior biology could do and what he didn’t account for caused some discrepancies.

The TARDIS led her through a couple of open corridors. Martha quickly traversed them until she reached a wooden door. It was obviously where the TARDIS had meant for her to tread, though Martha had never seen her manifest it before. It was rustic aesthetic-wise.

Martha knocked. “Doctor?”

There was no answer. Martha tried the door handle and found it unlocked. The room was bright and spacious, full of cozy looking furniture. She immediately spotted the Doctor in the middle of the peaceful setting. He was slumped back in his chair, breathing slowly and steadily. A pad of paper sat precariously on his knees.

Martha approached the snoozing alien and knelt down in front of him. She set her medical kit on the floor near the Doctor’s discarded jacket. She shook his knee and called to him. The pad of paper fell off of his lap. The sound of it hitting the floor made him start.

“Mph- Martha?” He rubbed at his eyes, blinking. Gradually, he seemed to wake enough to focus on her.

“Hey there, sleepy head. I came to check on you,” Martha informed him.

“Oh.” The Doctor continued to blink owlishly at her crouched position. He stared at the medical kit for a full minute before something clicked. His eyes widened. “M’ fine.”

Martha would have laughed at his dopey confusion if it hadn’t concerned her slightly. She was uncertain about the contents of the vial that the poachers had targeted the Doctor with. Furious was hardly enough to describe the reception they had received for spoiling their hunt.

“Then you won’t mind if I make sure that you really are fine,” Martha said assertively.

She took the Doctor’s wrist between her fingers, gazing at her watch. The Doctor let her complete her examination. She pressed her stethoscope over his hearts, peered into his eyes, and asked him if there was any pain or numbness in his extremities. He checked out alright. After she had completed her basic checks, the Doctor bent over to fish for his paper pad.

“Oi, hold off for a minute and let me see your arm.”

He gave a put-upon sigh, but obediently took off his layered button down. Underneath it was his deep burgundy T-shirt. He rolled up a sleeve so that she could see the puncture. The skin was red and irritated, but there was no clear or cloudy discharge. Martha opened up her kit and tugged on her gloves. She started cleaning the wound. The wide gauge of the needle had left a substantial subcutaneous dent.

Martha made a soft and somewhat unprofessional noise of disapproval. “Did they hit you with an elephant tranquilizer?”

“Probably could have taken down a large mammal,” the Doctor admitted. “But Time Lords are made of sterner stuff.”

Martha refrained from rolling her eyes. After she finished cleaning his injury, she bandaged it up neatly. At last, she pronounced the procedure finished. The Doctor sighed and picked up his pad of paper and a pencil. He closed the pad and set it down on a small wooden endtable.

“What’s that?” Martha asked.

“It’s a sketch book,” he said simply.

“Can I see?”

He eyed her.

“Fine. ‘Course. I’m the one that barged in on you-” Martha began.

“There’s more near the back wall over there. There’s not much in this new notebook yet.” He gestured to a cluster of papers lying angled against the wall.

Martha left her space on the floor to approach the art pieces. She pulled them out one at a time. The Doctor’s swooping and ethereal style from his time as John Smith was apparent in some of them. Others were unmistakably different. Some of his pieces were in rich reds and golds and others in tranquil blues. He had depicted warm city backdrops and cool spring mornings in quiet outdoor marketplaces. He seemed to paint a bit of everything.

Martha wondered why he had kept this part of himself hidden for so long. Most blokes she knew would never miss an opportunity to show off. The Doctor’s own form of bravado was different though; he was always running, always showing her something brand new.

“Why do you keep these in here?” The plain room was taken up by the art shoved in the back corners, none of it displayed. She turned to see the Doctor studying her fondly.

“It’s already all over the ship, along with your artwork. The TARDIS decorates the walls and the ceilings with it.”

Now that the Doctor mentioned it, she had noticed their drawings in the corridors and on the ceiling of the library. She had assumed that the TARDIS displayed souvenirs from the different locations they had visited along with things that were left lying around.

A thought occurred to Martha, and she nearly dropped the drawing she was holding. Surely the theory was too ludicrous. “Are you seriously saying that the TARDIS is displaying our art? She’s showing it off?”

The Doctor slowly inclined his head.

“Oh my god, the TARDIS is putting our artwork on the fridge,” Martha said.

The Doctor furrowed his brow.

“You know, like when a parent puts your schoolwork on the fridge, tries to make you feel special.” Martha chuckled, wondering why she hadn’t seen it before.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows in a dubious fashion. “She’s programmed to sense our needs and she forms a telepathic link with some of her passengers. She’s just showing us what we desire to see.”

Martha was already shaking her head. She knew that the Doctor fancied his relationship with the TARDIS to be of a romantic and worshipful nature like someone with their expensive car. She knew the truth though. The TARDIS protected them, fed and watered them, and tended to all of their other needs. In return, she demanded their respect and compliance.

“She’s totally your Mum...well, more like your spouse I guess, with the way you two quarrel.” Martha knew how parents quarreled.

“Oh, don’t start postulating,” the Doctor groaned. “If we’re done in here I think I’m going to turn in. The metabolic process is taking longer than expected.”

Martha hummed. Trust him to get out of an uncomfortable conversation by appealing to her medical concerns. She wasn’t through with him yet though.

“Wake me if you start showing any symptoms or if you feel any pain or numbness. I’m going to ask the TARDIS to keep an eye on you, Mister,” Martha said sternly.

The Doctor didn’t look impressed by her threat. Martha supposed that the TARDIS was in close mental contact with him already. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen the time machine’s relationship with them clearly before.

The Doctor left the room with a final huff. He was reacting a bit like a stroppy pre-adolescent being told to take care of themselves. Once he was gone, the TARDIS gave a reassuring sounding warble. Martha patted a wall.

“Thanks.”

She was glad that she was at least on the same side as the Mrs.

The End.


End file.
